NYT and Immigrant Detainee Medical Care

The New York Times has published an editorial calling DHS on it's inhumane treatment of undocumented immigrants. It reminds me of the McClellan book on the Bush Administration, why did the NYT take so long?



Below are previous dreamacttexas posts on this issue:

June 5, 2008 "You Are Not Supposed to Kill People in Custody"
May 12, 2008 "Immigrants and Medical Neglect, Part II"
May 11, 2008 "Immigrants and Medical Neglect, Part I"
May 5, 2008 "People Dying While in ICE Custody"
March 24, 2008 "It Doesn't Just Happen to Latinos"
December 24, 2007 "ICE Incompetence"
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June 11, 2008

Editorial
New York Times

Dying in Detention

The government has a duty to provide decent, effective, timely medical care to people in its custody. That should be beyond debate, but not when the government in question is the Bush administration and the people in custody are illegal immigrants.

Recent news reports from The Times, The Washington Post and CBS News have shone a harsh light on the immigration detention system, finding alarming evidence of shoddy care, inadequate staffing, lax standards, secrecy and chronic ineptitude.

Not many Americans know the names of detained immigrants like Boubacar Bah of Guinea and Francisco Castaneda of El Salvador. Mr. Bah died after falling and fracturing his skull; his injuries went untreated for more than 14 hours. Mr. Castaneda died because the diagnosis and treatment of his cancer was tragically delayed. They, and dozens of others, should be memorialized as victims of a system scarred by malign neglect.

The government should be rushing to improve the oversight and care in its sprawling detention system to protect all detainees. Instead, the official reaction has been slow and defensive, promised improvements are piecemeal, and criticism of the system is making immigration hard-liners indignant.

At a House subcommittee hearing last week, Representative Peter King, the committee’s ranking Republican, complained: “Why should the American people be responsible for paying for Rolls-Royce medical care for illegal aliens?” Representative Zoe Lofgren, the subcommittee’s chairwoman, is valiantly pushing back. She realizes that with the administration busily expanding immigration detention and failing far too often to meet its own minimal standards for medical care, it is up to Congress to insist on better.

She and Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey have sponsored the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act, which would go far to provide the basic protections that failed Mr. Bah and Mr. Castaneda. The bill would impose more rigorous standards on the network of more than 300 publicly and privately run prisons that make up the federal system — current rules are voluntary, not legally enforceable and not uniformly followed. And it would require that all deaths be reported to the Justice Department and Congress.

Congress should swiftly pass the bill, putting aside the poisoned debate over illegal immigration, which has no relevance here. Whether immigrants are legal or illegal has nothing to do with their right to humane care. As Ms. Lofgren bluntly put it: “You are not supposed to kill people who are in custody.”

for link to NYT editorial click here